Page 43 of Burn With Me

“Aurora!” Isaac’s irritated roar reaches my ears.

I ignore it.

Fuck him. Fuck his father. Fuck all of this. Maybe I should’ve gone with Marcus to Eastpoint. Yeah, I would have struggled to find my place there. I would have, yet again, had to live underneath the umbrella that accompanies being Marcus Summers’ baby sister. At least I wouldn’t be here, dealing withhim. Maybe then I wouldn’t be in this situation. So many maybes. So many what-ifs, yet at the end of the day this is all that I’m left with. A confusing amount of attraction to a man I should fucking hate. A lost sense of what to do. And an undetermined amount of danger circling me at every waking moment.

Hard footsteps sound behind me. I keep walking. A hand grabs my arm a moment later. I close my eyes and let myself be yanked around—I expected it anyway. I use the momentum of the movement to propel my fist. If he’s going to jerk me around, then the very least Isaac’s going to do is take the damage that comes with it.

My fist flies towards his face and I register the shock on his expression a split second before my knuckles connect with his cheekbone. The skin over the bone breaks. Isaac curses, but instead of thrusting me away as I expect, his hands latch onto my arms and shake me.

“Stop it!” he growls. “Fuck! Just fuckingstop.”

“No!” I scream, dropping my arm as my whole body trembles with the force of his shaking. “Youstop! Fuck. I’m so goddamn tired of this shit. You think you can just come into my life and boss me around? I’m not your fucking toy, Isaac. I don’t know what kind of girls you’ve fucked with before—which ones had the audacity to get in your way and turn your ire on them, but I am not like anyone you’ve met before. You mess with me, and you won’t just have a fight on your hands, you’ll have a war.”

Isaac glares down at me. I just don’t give a shit anymore. I glare right fucking back at him, daring him. “You drive me fucking insane.” He spits out his words like they’re poison. Maybe they are and I just don’t know it yet because knowing that I drive him crazy in the same way he does me does something to me. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel powerful when all I’ve ever felt is fucking helpless.

“Welcome to the club.” I snort. “You think dealing with you is any different?” My feet move back, but he follows, keeping his hands latched onto my arms. “Let go,” I demand.

He doesn’t let go, though. Of course not. That would be too easy—giving me what I want. Instead, Isaac moves ever closer until the scent of him—all sharp spices and warmth—fills my nostrils. My thighs tighten.

“Let go, Isaac,” I repeat. “Or you’ll regret it.”

“Don’t bother, Sunshine,” he says. “I already know what you’re planning.”

“Oh, really?” Even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I jerk my leg up and aim my knee directly between both of his. In a move faster than lightning, his hands tighten against my arms and he yanks me off balance before my knee can make it to its destination. The two of us go tumbling down in a heap on the pavement and at the last second, he turns, hitting the ground first. My face slams into his chest, my nose crashing between his pecs.

A low, rumbling growl emits from the body beneath me. Self-preservation has me scrambling backwards, but his hold is still there and it’s strong. Isaac flips both of us once more until this time, I’m the one with my back to the ground, hard concrete and small loose rocks digging into me past my dress. He hovers, blond curls falling into his shadowed face as he looms over me.

Sweat beads pop up along my spine. My whole body goes cold. My throat closes. “No…” What I mean to be a scream comes out as little more than a breathless whisper.

“You are the worst pain in my ass I’ve ever fucking had to experience,” Isaac starts talking. I hear him—the insulting worlds—but they’re far away. The rest of me may be here, but my mind has been catapulted backwards.

Phantom hands slide their way up my inner thighs. I’m going to puke.No,I order myself.Don’t puke. Not here. Don’t let him see. He can’t know.

“Get off me.” Fine trembles start up my limbs, and soon, they’ve overtaken my entire body. Try as I might, I can’t stop them. “Please …Isaac.” I say his name more to myself than to him. It’s a reminder of who this is in front of me and who it’s not. It’s not him. It’s not Eric. “Stop. Get … get off of me.”

“—rora.” My vision swims in front of me, growing hazy as the panic takes hold—squeezing long tentacle-like tendrils around my neck until my airflow is cut off and I’m gasping for breath.

The shadow above me disappears and a moment later, I can feel my body being positioned, pulled up, and settled back against a hard, warm lap. A firm, wide palm touches the back of my head, cupping it. Isaac says something else, but I don’t hear it anymore. The hands touching me no longer feel as restraining and disgusting but rather soft and gentle.

That can’t be Isaac, though. He doesn’t have a gentle bone in his body. It’s that thought, too, that finally pulls me out of the past and out of the bone-numbing panic attack. My vision returns in small increments. I can hear my breaths coming in fast, jerky sounds—but I’m breathing and that’s what matters.

I don’t know how long we sit like that in the middle of an empty parking lot with rough pavement under us and a warm breeze fluttering against our faces, but when I finally feel like I can move again and the world isn’t trying to close in on me, I look up into a pair of eyes so blue they could rival the fucking midnight sky.

“Are you okay?”

Am I okay?I repeat Isaac’s question in my mind again and again until I feel like it’s branded on my soul.No, I’m not okay.I push back against his chest and this time, he lets me. He releases me as easily as if he was always intending to in the first place, and I climb up from the safety of his arms to stand on my own.

“I’m going home,” I tell him.

He gets up, though a bit more slowly than I did. I wait for a response, but all I receive in return is a hard, impenetrable look. “Did you hear me?” I demand. He continues to stare at me, and I feel electrified by his gaze. He looks like a blue-eyed tiger hunting its prey.

I take a step back. He takes one forward. “Isaac.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Aurora,” he says. I blink, but don’t respond. He continues. “You can go homeafterwe’ve had our talk,” he repeats. “Now, unless you want to tell me what that was all about”—I stiffen as he gestures to the ground we’d just been sitting on before letting his gaze come back to me. There’s no doubt what he means and I have no intention of telling him shit.—“then what you’re going to do is get your ass back in the fucking car before I strap you down, spank your ass, and throw you in myself.”

This is just too much. “Why?” The question slips out before I can think better of it. And instead of sounding angry or frustrated, both of which I’m feeling, it sounds … tired. More tired than I care to admit I actually am—especially to someone like him. Someone that I should have my guard up with.

He arches a brow. “Why would I spank you?” he clarifies. “Or why am I forcing you to talk with me?”

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